Draw With Riot - Spirit Blossom

hello everybody and welcome to the second draw with riot i'm bryan kaye your friendly community manager and i am joined by the super talented paul kwan he is one of our senior concept artists at riot games and is going to be creating something super special for you today so paul why don't you tell me a little bit about your background at riot and how long you've been there hey everybody uh my name is paul kwan i go by the name art handle zeroness and uh i've been with riot for almost nine years it's it's gone yeah it's it's been a long time but um yeah i'm a concept part of stairs uh at champ on champion team right now uh amazing yeah and you've worked on some super exciting projects i know that you were part of the kda skin line and also recently working on spirit blossom so um which spirit blossom champions did you design the concept out for um i've only designed one uh skin for the spirit blossom actually yone it's his launch skin and uh and the other contributions that i made are for the dating simulation uh you know the visual novelization game so i did re illustration riven and also yoni as well yeah amazing so we're gonna be uh creating something magical on stream today and i'm not gonna give it away exactly but i would really love everyone in twitch chat to try and guess what it is that paul is drawing for us today it is in the theme of spirit blossom but it's a little bit of a surprise um so i have some friendly uh people behind the scenes gathering your questions for paul so if you would like to ask a question please leave it in twitch chat alternatively if you would like to ask on social media you can do on twitter with the hashtag drawwithriot and i will be gathering all those questions and asking them to pull um so as you'll be able to see on the screen we have the drawing starting and everything that you're seeing artistically here is done by paul so if you have any questions in terms of his process how he goes about designing a skin how he goes about starting a drawing or anything like that at all there's a few ideas of what you can ask him uh so and we know how much you've uh worked at riot so far and kind of um what you did for yone what's your favorite concept art that you've done so far right oh man that's a that's a really tough question it's it's hard to narrow it down because i've done so many and i love every single one of them like they they all brought like different challenges that that's what i love about it um man in terms of champion that i i got to work on um and it was like eight years ago since i you know moved to skin's team and uh you know came back to champion team but uh the last champion i worked on was vi and i i think she was really fun to work on and for the champ uh for the skin skin line i would say uh it's either corsair skin the the pirates or um yeah kda i know that's kind of like uh like obvious answer but um it's a fan favorite though everyone loves the kda skins like even when i'm playing and i see a kda skin i absolutely love it and i think uh spirit blossom has definitely had that vibe as well twitch feel free to tell us if i'm going here but i love the dating stimulation i think all of the facial admissions is so much fun i really really enjoyed going through all the spirit bonds and uh we have more coming today which is very exciting so in terms of um what we're drawing here i'm wondering if anyone so far has guessed who it is that we're drawing i've just seen some in the chat so paul if you want to confirm what it is that you are drawing on screen for us today um yeah the the character i'm drawing right now is none other than jet from uh imagined in a spirit blossom universe it's kind of a crossover which is really interesting yeah yeah so i have to say straight off the bat that this isn't some hint wink wink nudge nudge that uh there is gonna be a spirit blossom jet skin in the future this is simply just us celebrating the fact that riot games is now multiple games and that we have the spirit blossom event and we thought it would be a great uh cross-collaboration to take something from the valorant universe and turn it into spirit blossom so you'll be able to see jet in a new light and i i really hope that you guys enjoy seeing this drawing come to life um so in terms of you looking at jet hair and saying hey i want to make jet look like she would be in the spirit blossom universe how do you kind of go about um planning that out in your mind and creating that as an artist as someone with no artistic skill i'm really fascinated by your process um so when it comes to uh like doing this like different crossover with like two different established like artistic direction uh you know the the in terms of the look um it was really fun like i love doing that and i didn't really dive too deep into it as normally i would in professional like studio like if i were to do that for like professional studio i would like to do very extensive researching and you know getting feedback for for this i just had fun so much liberty and treated like a more of a tribute art and like as a fan of my uh of both of the games i uh and i i kind of took like most of the spirit blossom like what is established like as you can see like the coloring of the talish blue and the pink so you know putting those together with uh you know accents of gold um and with like a spin of like the valorance like really stylish like modern and sci-fi outfit like that's what i wanted to melt together that's what i had in mind but didn't really restrict myself i just had it like you know made myself just go with the flow and go with that the zone i guess yeah yeah i really like the idea that even though art is something that you do professionally and i know you create a ton of art in your spare time as well that you can still just be rolling with it and not give yourself too many limitations because this is just a really fun celebration and i like that um you've taken those pre-existing kind of themes that we've got with sprit blossom and then kind of ran with it and i personally have seen um this and i i love it i think it's amazing and i love that you've been able to take something with a completely different art style and make it into spirit blossom um so far so far the chat is loving it as well we're seeing a lot of amazings they they are really enjoying it so if you do have any questions um please do feel free to ask them again with the hashtag drawdry on twitter as well and we'll be able to get those over to full um so if you had to pick a favorite character out of all of the league of legends characters and champions that we have what would be your favorite one to draw favor want to draw oh man i wish i could give a clever answer but um yeah obviously i would say all the league of legends like yes ari yeah i have a feeling of yeah ari spins and uh yeah i even did like a fan art of her to the point yeah but it's um are too many so it's it's hard for me to chew so i just like chose ari because you know i've done so many skins over here yeah yeah i mean ari's a good one and i think there's there's a lot of amazing skins i personally love the arcade skin line i'm a sonamay so i love arcade sona and i love sorry i think it's amazing yeah okay so we have a question here from mr pufferfish in the chat um and they would like to know how does one get into this line of work so i'm guessing they are asking kind of how you got started and how you went about joining riot as an artist the story is pretty long so i i'll try to condense it as much as i can um you talk as much originally sure yeah why not i i had no idea uh like i mean when i was really young like i i grew up playing games like and like final fantasy starcraft like diablo um and i always loved and fascinated was fascinated by those concept art illustrations and that drew me into like kind of teaching myself how to draw like just doodling not not doing art for seriously but um just over time and i didn't know this was like an actual profession like um like feasible profession i guess and i went to university in arizona um studying like try to study science computer science engineering like programming but did not work out wow it's completely opposite of what i'm doing now and uh i have so much respect for them i cannot do it but i uh they don't really have a game or a movie like concept art like field so the closest thing was the product design like industrial design like designing like phones uh shoes all like physical products so that's what i studied um but it didn't really work out for me either like so uh what happened was i i decided like i'm gonna try a school and uh in pasadena in california called art center and uh i did a i prepare a portfolio um but yeah i got in they they had the actual program there the concept part so that's what i studied i i ended up not like graduating i just went straight to riot like i i got a job offer um so um how do you how do you get to get into this field like i think the short answer is just have a portfolio ready uh online and expose yourself and constantly put up your best work and you know be be part of the community and you know connect with people show what you have like what what you know new stuff to show uh interact with other people's posts of their own art and you know give each other feedback uh if you like um but yeah having having that kind of like being part of that community and showing your own work uh portfolio really helps like you know professionals like see it and yeah possibly consider for like a future opportunities yeah amazing and um i know that you personally have an art station so do you think art station is a great place for people to upload their work um yeah actually yeah yeah building all the social media yeah our station's good yeah awesome cool so we have another question here from opaque heart how do you choose between going straight to drawing with colors by making shapes versus starting off with sketches and line up it's a really good question um i i recently adapted this kind of way of the art you know creating an art and this process of like blocking in and without relying on like rough sketches or clean line drawings it's kind of refreshing and for some reason it works for me i didn't like i wasn't able to do this as well before uh before i transition into like purely line art i mean rough drawing clean line art like masking color underneath and uh you know keeping the layers very organized um i did that for a long time like few years and even did that for like star guardian like concepts like uh and i did that for spirit blossom obviously because it's kind of like an anime style so yeah it was perfect for that that project but um yeah during kda i i just went straight to blocking and color it just felt more organic and you know non-restricting i guess and that that allowed me to iterate fast and freely as i got a lot of feedbacks um it was a lot easier for me to like mold and deform you know change the designs on the fly um yeah because after i did like a line art and you know doing that for a long time it actually changed my mentality and how i approach uh like tackling the art and having you know my thinking process uh has changed a little bit and that actually if helped me uh paint better and that's why i think when i finally did something like this as you see here like blocking in and doing color straight on like that uh it's a lot easier for me yeah i think it's awesome that as someone who is a super talented artist as you are but have been at riot games for so long you're still learning and growing and i think that's um something that i have a lot of artist friends in the games industry and they're constantly like criticizing their work and learning and growing i think that's something that uh artists kind of have but they never think that they're the best they can be they're always trying to get better so um it's great that you're still you know fine-tuning your creative process which i think is really cool yeah having that drive is i think part of what is really fun being an artist and being someone creative uh just constantly trying to get better trying to see what's new out there any better solutions and like observing other artists like they're super talented and seeing how they approach their like uh creative process like that it's very fascinating and motivating yeah oh awesome cool so we have another question which is a kind of similar sort of topic so arena quinn says what advice would you give to someone who would like to become a game artist one day they also said nice concept by the way so we're throwing in that confident there which i think is the overall opinion of twitch chat right now um so yeah specifically if you could give someone advice to go straight into kind of game artists rather than the route you kind of took [Music] um like what kind of advice i would give it's i know it's kind of generic to say like it's all about mileage because it does take a lot of practice and trial and error and learning from that i think the fastest way to learn an art and i this is me trying to go back in time and tell myself uh being [Music] because artists like we have some sort of like the personal like uh expressive like we want to be very expressive with our art and kind of stand by it and it's good to kind of let that go and let ourselves be open and visible uh kind of vulnerable i guess in terms of like yeah what are what is our weakness getting feedback from like the artists from in the community that's that's always awesome like i have artist friends who are uh in the community like in twitter uh then sometimes they they message me privately and say oh this is what i'm working on personally um what do you think and i i'm like this looks so awesome it's great but he's like yeah be honest uh i i love to get your feedback on it and and i i i got so much respect for him and uh i i feel like i didn't do enough of that in the past so yeah being being open-minded and you know let yourself be free from um that uh you know rigidness of like oh this is my art like i i'm this i'm expressing my own style and stuff like that um i think it's really it's really good to have that that mentality and it helps you grow really fast yeah that's great advice um do you think it's quite difficult to get constructive feedback on a certain style but also developing your own style as an artist as i know as you said um having your kind of vision is one thing but getting better and updating your techniques might be another do you have any advice for kind of staying true to yourself but also improving at the same time yeah um it's i guess that's really up to the artists to take and leave the feedback um like generally what i like to do is like like personally i i want to experience something new something that i haven't done um because i haven't i don't think i did enough of that in the past so discovering a new technique and new style to try out in my own personal style and my process is it's very exciting for me so personally like i i look out for that and um like really encourage that yeah cool so in terms of what is going on right now with jet um as someone who is not an artist and i shared a personal story with yourself of one time where i tried to create some art and it went horribly wrong um what is it that you're currently working on in the drawing right now so i've seen that you've mostly blocked out kind of the actual shape and all the colors and laying that down like if you talk me through a little bit about what you're doing yeah so right now i'm just like blocking in and just keeping everything very loose but at the same time kind of clean enough for it to be legible like and i'm constantly like zooming in and out and i i try to get in the habit of doing that because i want to build everything all together uh like cohesively and not just tunnel vision on one thing and i i've made enough mistake to uh learn uh how not to do that um but yeah like i'm kind of uh like right here like the collar area the gold uh trims like i'm adding a little bit of the volumetric and like contrast like indicating the material and and giving like the visual communication what that material is made of um and yeah it looks like i'm adding like yeah i i do add a bit of a colored highlights to it like i generally don't like just relying on values for color so like adding you know like light uh desaturated colors i i tend to add some sort of like hue and tone uh you know color to anything like even even the darks um and the lightest lights um like i try to implement some color so it doesn't feel dry and flat yeah i want to make it feel rich and pure so like you can see it here and the gold knuckles and the articulated finger area like even the shadows are very warm almost going to like an orange but you know controlled and the highlights are going a little bit cooler tone like towards the greens so yeah it's that's something i using a lot and it's i'm having ton of fun like mixing colors a lot yeah it's cool as you said like i can i can see where you're zooming in and working on a detail and it's really easy to kind of get laser focused on one area like her hand or her collar as she said yeah but then when you zoom out and you kind of see it all pulled together like every time you zoom out i'm like wow like it looks like yeah sorry much better like every time i'm glad you noticed that and uh to kind of add to that like my mental state or thought process like as i was working on that hand okay i'm gonna keep it as loose and you know make it work with the rest of the image but like on the back of my mind my bad habit is saying i need to make it perfect i need to make it very refined and you know super polished oh my god doesn't it's not good enough you know like so i'm trying to find balance and i'm trying to not get you know like tempted to do that yeah do you ever find that you'll have like a favorite part of a drawing and you'll say for example here like you may focus on her gun and then you have like this really amazingly finished gun and then you zoom out and nothing else has been worked on do you find that or do you kind of hold it um like favorite part like in terms of this one i mean it's um it's normally the face like i i because i'm i'm so passionate about like making the face look really good like because that that tells so much personality and so much for the character so that's why i do a lot of like portraits like i i yeah i'm like i want to just focus on that and maybe too much like i do too many portraits and make sure the hand is not in the frame always really hard to draw so like like i'm one of the yeah like very lazy about that but um yeah definitely the face and uh in the past i i i would start with the eye and then somehow create the entire body like branch it out and create the entire character out of it that's the i think it works with some people and you know i'm sure some people can pull it off way better than i can but it's not the most logical and best way to approach uh in terms of creating character um yeah but yeah now i kind of train myself enough to let's save the best for last best for maybe you know 80 of the way through um i'm gonna work on everything else and make sure you know everything's the whole image works cohesively i think that's a solid process i mean i know that if i had any talent i would probably get quite caught up in the thing i really enjoyed doing and then leave things like hands and hair and those kind of harder areas to the end but it's good that you're kind of wanting the whole image to kind of come together all at once um cool so i have another question here from i'm sorry if i butch your name glenn of goo for riot's style is there a guideline for how characters should look or do they give you kind of a free pass in creative agency to do what you like that's a really good question i would say and this is me speaking personally and not for the whole team um because right is made up of so many diverse different backgrounds and uh you know uh how they grew up like um i mean with the styles and the influence of like what they love like growing up um so it's pretty diverse in general and that i think shaped the style of league to be very diverse as well but at the same time what brings everything together cohesively is i think that's the way it's presented and the promo um the character designs and styles also like the in game once the models are in game and it's beautifully textured by 3d artists and you know the way it's animated um laying sound effects and all that i think that that kind of sets like established uh the league's look um and personally i think fortish is uh the studio perfortation france uh they did a really amazing job like like really like polishing like what was it you know existing styles and like iconography of the characters um yeah amazing that's great tonight hopefully there's so many because yeah it's a good question sorry yeah there's so many people kind of contributing to the overall look of league and i think um yeah when i've kind of interacted with people about like yoneza or um as you said like the dating sim kind of the art there a lot of people instantly knew that it was you that did some of those and i think that's really really cool that um they recognize your art and they can kind of have almost their favorite artists at ryan i'm sure people do um but it's cool that they can know that your style but it's also kind of the overall style of league as well um cool so have another question here more about you which is great because we want to know everything about you life living says which artists have been your inspirations and how can you see that in your style or is your art inspired by something completely different my inspirations have changed a lot and not not in a way like oh i'm uh you know i'm moving on to different artists that's uh inspiration it's like i'm i'm constantly adding new artists in my in my bucket of like oh i want to be as good as this person or i want to try to replicate this brilliant solution to like you know design and creating compelling character designs um [Music] i guess growing up most notably have been [Music] like square enix artists like tetsuya nomura akihito yoshida some of the you know artists that i worked with in the past i got you know blizzard internship like you know uh john paul dora glenn rayne um uh gerald braum and like one way those guys like those guys are absolutely amazing and i learned so much from them just just by watching them draw um but after that like it just became like overloading with like two so many brilliant artists like at riot as well like just being part of like in the meeting and in like my concert reviews or art reviews like seeing them how they you know would do certain things like suggestions that i get like that that's been uh like ingrained in my mind and i i i've been repeating that um but yeah like twitter like that's that's a really good social media especially like twitter that i see so many good artists that just like pops up and i yeah i like i save it like and retweet it and also um follow them yeah i have too many i i follow too many artists on twitter [Laughter] it's great that um that yeah you can see people pop up and just be inspired by them i think there's the the notion that only super successful artists are good and that's definitely not true there are so many people just starting out who are super talented who don't yet have a following and then they just blow up yeah they have like it's just i don't know where uh i don't know this artist but they're amazing and they they just started they're they might they must be really young too and uh straight out of school just that's very inspiring too like nowadays the the resource of like free education is so like you know vast and it's available everywhere like on youtube or like twitch stream as well right like um you can see so much you can get so much information there and people are picking up like yeah how to do art really well yeah i think it's awesome that i mean people now like even watching you be able to create this it's awesome that you're able to share your process i think it's it's it's really cool that people can watch this come to life and hopefully pick up some tips on how to improve their art or just even learn for me i'm just learning about art because i can't draw a stick person so for me i'm just sat here like amazing i'll draw you a stick person after the stream and you can review it for me and let me know sorry i'm looking at i'm looking at a jet now and i'm seeing that you're putting down um kind of a lot bigger highlights i've seen some kind of more um bolder lines as well um it's come along a long way so um what is kind of your main focus going now um so i'm kind of like focusing on a little bit of you know adding a bit more visual communication visual details to uh show what it really is um so this like i didn't really have many reference for the gun so i'm kind of using my visual library in my head to extract what i know and uh just kind of making it up like i i would it's it might not like totally make sense like functionality wise but it's i'm just like focusing on how to balance uh you know internal design details uh making sure that it's not cluttered that there's some areas of rest and also like little details that are even minor they're they're kind of cohesively uh feel like they belong together it looks like it's made by one person i think that's the biggest thing that i try to focus on when i when it comes to designing establishing like design language and finding that one really good like iconic visual uh shapes and try to repeatedly um you know uh yeah like apply that everywhere else as if there's a rhythm to the whole piece i flow to the whole art awesome so another question here from twitter this time so thank you for submitting your questions on twitter with the hashtag we've got one from vic from here that says do you do any non-digital art and if so what's your favorite medium um unfortunately i don't anymore um the only like non-digital medium that i use was like color pencil that's that's the only way i colored uh artwork before like i didn't i never uh was trained in like oil painting or acrylic or any type of painting i've done like you know figure paintings before like miniatures okay but that's about it like i would love to tackle while doing very traditional art mediums like uh yeah oil painting that would be really cool because i i've seen gerald braun uh do that like he's a master of you know you know oil painting so it's been very methodical and like amazing to watch them do that so one thing yeah one day i'll i'll buy the materials and do that yeah yeah i'd be really keen to see you try that actually is there is there a specific reason why you think you kind of lent more towards digital do you find that it kind of suits your style better or that it was easier to pick up or just personally because that's just kind of where you fell into [Music] it was definitely personally i just fell into it like i never like thought about like or needed to use oil painting or uh stuff like that um i i guess i did like sketch on paper a little bit and uh um like for for designing characters i would have like tiny sticky notes all those yellow like sticky notes that i get like i would do like thumbnails there very quickly to put down ideas that come about you know come up in my head but nothing nothing too too much like like oil painting and digital digital is definitely more accessible and way more forgiving than traditional uh yeah way of doing art yeah controls the users yeah it worked out well because i mean i think it'd be quite difficult to design a a concept art for a league of legends champion in like a traditional uh format and then try and convert that digitally so i mean it worked out for us the first to do it yeah i like to do a pitch art in a you know oil painting like in this canvas i like it a whole oil painting skin line that you do by hand and then they have to convert it [Laughter] cool so i have another question here from nodotwitch that says how many references do you have to gather and use so that the character you're working on isn't furthering away the intended theme [Music] that's that's a really good question because i i feel like yeah references a gathering reference is incredibly important um it's a it's part of researching that we do to you know prepare ourselves before diving in to like ideation blue sky uh putting out the ridiculous most ridiculous ideas um and you know figuring out how to tunnel like like narrowing it down to the best idea um in the past i i used to like we we create like these what's called like mood board or ref boards and we would like present it to the team and say hey this is the ideas we're going for the goals and the pillars of personality where this character is from the story and all that and the gameplay like what gameplay we're trying to achieve here and we would show the mood board saying oh these are kind of the vibe uh maybe the design language uh these are the references for the faction um and here are the references for the the weapons to match the gameplay like we would extensively do that and um but personally i i want i i like to narrow down the best references like it's it's really difficult when there's a collage of like constellation of references on one page and it gets very overwhelming um and you can get into a trap of like confusion like using one reference to find the design motif and suddenly you find another reference that's like oh that i like that motif better so like you kind of mix and match it too much and it gets in and muddles or i guess it makes the design kind of muddy and confusing um yeah so yeah i like to try to it is a art of yeah it is like another part of a craft to like research really well um yeah for for kda we had like a designated person who kind of researched for us that was that was incredible nice but yeah so then if you're kind of provided a bunch of references do you kind of pick and choose the ones out of that research that you kind of resonate the most with they can help with your yeah yeah like uh what i did was um i i kind of helped create like a visual direction for kda like artistic direction so what i did was like uh get into you know get into meetings talk about what works what kind of fashion direction we we like and uh you know visual motifs like you know more of the diamond shapes and how the material could be treated like the material even if it's gold it's not just a standard goal that has like iridescent quality to it because the idea was that they're constantly on stage and hit by multi different colored lights and it's always lit like that and reflected that way so we wanted to give that shimmering and prismatic look to it and that um yeah that was all included and like that like mood board like artistic direction uh like guide that we create and it helps like align everybody together um yeah because i've noticed that you mentioned that with spirit blossom um you worked on some of the champions and then some of the kind of dating sim kind of areas but how many artists were in total kind of working on spirit blossom oh we have so many um it was a collaboration between you know us champion and the skins team um i believe skins had like five or six uh artists working on the the actual designs the skin designs and i think there were like 10 total and you know champion team worked on like two designs uh lilia for uh yeah her launch skin and yonah's launch skin um but maybe eight or possibly ten artists and i could be i could be totally off and i i apologize if i'm off but yeah i think 10 is a good number yeah yeah that that is a decent amount of artists and i think for you all to kind of be aligned on one kind of style so that it looks all cohesive is it's super talented and i'll never fully understand how you can do that but i guess that's kind of part of that question where you're getting references and research i think that's probably a big part of it you don't just kind of sit down and start drawing because you kind of need that background as well um yes i have a question here carry on carry on oh sorry uh yeah to to add to that we had really good like art leadership working on it um you know art directors and art leads uh you know producers and um you know they kind of like really helped narrow it down to very cohesive and uh very strong visual direction [Music] amazing cool so a question here from issa that uh we have to be careful with this question uh what champion would you love to create a skin skateboard that you haven't worked on yet so just in the in the theory of the world nothing uh super specific but if you were like i would just love to create a skin or you know a certain style for yeah why not yeah i would say sono oh that works for me because i'm insane i mean i'm very excited for psyops so now because i haven't worked on sona skin that's that's actually the really good answer like the only sauna skin like sora worked on was like the ultimate sona skin the dj sona ah yeah you know i was like just partially involved and um you know it was finished by really really good artists um but yeah sonar would be really good awesome i know whenever i kind of post anything about skins on social media it's always when star guardian and sonar coming and i think for some reason people just really want star guardian sona but i can't imagine in my mind because i'm not an artist what star guardian sona would look like but i i think it would be awesome it should be really good like she would fit right in for yeah for the the skin line yeah i also like the idea of kda sona to fit with the kind of the band theme i feel like she could fit into nba yeah for you know for a musician character yeah that that's that's perfect right so we have a we have another question about you it seems people want to know a lot about you personally as well as your awesome art so as palmer says who do you main in league so if you play league do you need paul oh yeah i do i we talked a little bit um i mean i i play enough to um you know get uh you know get updated on all the you know you know new stuff and champions new skins uh gameplay and all that but um in terms of the mains i think i made my first main was zyra and still is yeah and second is vi yeah i remember when vi came out way back when i played league for nine years now but only been at riot two months but i remember when vine came out and i i never played like a jungler or like a top laner at all but i was like she looks so cool i want to play her so i'm just determined to play her in any lane that i could awesome so we're coming up to around the kind of halfway mark here so whilst we're kind of gathering some more of your questions i think now is a good time for us to take a little break give paul a chance to stretch get rubber drink and all that stuff so don't go anywhere feel free to ask us more questions on social media with the hashtag with riot or in twitch chat and we will gather those questions for you and we will come back ready to answer those so we'll see you in just a second welcome back everybody thank you for letting us take a little break there we are both in very warm countries right now by warm i mean i'm in london and paul is in california but london's very weird it's nice to get up and stretch grab a drink move around so thank you for that um so i'm gonna dive right back in with a question here which i think is just a really nice uh thing for me to think about especially crystal links here asks how does it feel seeing your final characters built and put into the game like what what does that feel like for you to see that final kind of project come to fruition and then see a player basically playing that champion um i i still get chills down my spine and butterflies you know in my stomach and uh yeah it's it's very you know happy moment to see that uh everything come together by you know the talents that we have and um and it's i feel very lucky as a concept artist to just be able to design and then have everybody else like who's incredibly talented like put their magic into and breathe life into these characters um and especially when fans like to look at like the results that we we made and like when they love it and show us that love through like you know doing cosplays really you know beautiful cosplays and fan arts like fan arts that are even better than my my concept hurt and uh it's very energizing and that that motivates me to do uh give even more i would say like um yeah it's it's very humbling too so that's awesome that you look at it that way and that you love fan art because i know that people trying to recreate something you've done can probably be quite personal and some artists may love it and some artists might find that it it kind of puts them off um but knowing that you just love seeing people recreate something that you've done is is super super cool and i think it's exciting to see as you said those cosplays events whenever i go to an event and i see people cosplaying as champions is and also having their own flavor to it i've seen cosplay skins for champions that don't exist and i think that's kind of what we're doing today with the spirit blossom jet like she's not a real thing but it's it's cool to just imagine you have any kind of favorite favorite kind of thing that you like seeing is cosplay your your favorite kind of medium that people recreate or is it fan art you know people creating manga or oh man um i don't have one particular favorite like i i find them all very uh you know really awesome and like inspiring to see um like taking what's existing and like putting them in uh like a situation that uh like feels like aligned with the character but like we haven't explored yet that like little comic strip is always like really fun to see um yeah and uh you know seeing cosplays like seeing you know characters come to life like that's always like uh you know like it's it's really cool to imagine that like come you know yeah yeah no definitely i love cosplay and i've seen some amazing cosplays happen even kind of with the world in quarantine just seeing people pulling things together especially for yone as well like um as soon as when they got announced and with the kind of teaser kind of the same blade um just seeing people already kind of making his mask and doing the bandages and i love that so much and i thought it's very exciting for you as well yeah definitely yeah so another question about you and kind of your process um what kind of music do you listen to when drawing if you do and kind of what helps you get in that zone i'm sure at the moment with us both working at home even though we work in different fields it's it's interesting to not be in that buzz of like a campus an office so how do you kind of focus into drawing mode yeah music does really help with the creative process like it allows me to get into the zone like the rhythm um because like for me uh there are there's always this challenge um like like my mental state sometimes changes like i think might be same for other creative uh people but like sometimes when i make like artistic decisions and like i i become conflicted about it i'm like did i is this the right way like um so that can be very distracting and to drown like to get away from that distraction i kind of drown it out with like music um like usually the music that is kind of like appropriate for the theme so uh yeah so like with kda like i would because i was also kind of new to the new uh scene of k-pop um i i would create a big list and even hit up some people who are more expert in k-pop like the more up-to-date k-pop like i would get like a playlist and not just listen to that while i work on it um and watch like music videos and that that helped me get into that groove and get into that mindset of yeah like even even help create like the you know the the design language the shapes um all the all those decisions yeah i think that's awesome because something i personally love is how all of the skin lines and themes in league of legends all have amazing law and if those of you in the chat haven't read up about kda or star guardians or spirit blossom like there's always so much law that kind of ties it all together as i love the star guardian's law so much so i i love the skin line i think it's amazing that um even though you're focused on the art you're still kind of immersing yourself in that process and i think there's something really really wholesome about that that whilst doing things for kda you'll listen to kpop and you mentioned earlier about how the gold um on the designs was never just gold it was kind of iridescent because you're thinking about them being on stage and i think even though this is for something in game just thinking about the whole kind of process it's really really cool cool um that's good so we have a lot of people asking um about what software you're using for the artwork so if you're able to um i would love to know and i'm sure everyone in the chat would love to know kind of what you're using to create this yeah i'm using the software called procreate app it's an app for i think uh iphone users or apple users so this was on my ipad pro i also have it on my phone to draw with yeah with my finger um but yeah this is this is mainly what i use now to do like professional work and personal work uh almost yeah hundred percent now i hardly ever touch uh photoshop anymore yeah fully converted everyone leaving photoshop and joining procreate after watching the stream it's a very powerful program uh very very simplified it's it's familiar enough um and the best thing is like you can go anywhere like you can take the ipad anywhere and work like uh go to coffee shop if you want to like it's great that makes such a big difference for me oh yeah that's really cool i think as we've talked a little bit about your process and kind of getting into the zone i'm guessing um your surroundings probably affect your artwork as well is there any particular place that you personally find um helps you create art is it like in your home is it at the riot studios is it you know on a beach you know what is your personal favorite um i haven't gone to the beach to draw yet i think that's a great idea i'll put down all the lists to do um um it changes like i think a changing location helps for me i would say like i love to be surrounded by talented people at work um you know like seeing other people what they do and just kind of vibe off of that that's really good uh sometimes i do like having focused time and so like working at home helps with that like i'm kind of isolated and focused and in this like creative bubble that sometimes really helps too so it it changes yeah awesome okay so another question kind of about your journey here from pascariou were there any points in your journey as an artist where you felt like you weren't good enough or kind of was in a funk and if yes how did you deal with that yeah i i deal with that all the time so like going back to like that music question um it applies to this question as well like uh that kind of distracting mindset of like oh am i am i doing the right thing i feel like i'm going nowhere with this like it's it's good to have that like self-check once in a while because it helps us like helps the artists like push further and try to look for like a better solution to certain things but sometimes it can be overwhelming like uh you know the artists create a blog that we go through it can be very daunting like i i really don't feel it right now i need to take a break like i've been on this for too long um so if you're going through an artist's block uh and you're you're faced with the deadline like you kind of have to push through if that's the case that's unfortunate like you have to push through and get it done um but if it's like a personal work and i i've worked on something for too long and it's not like i'm not getting anywhere with it i i would take a long break like i i've been in a sprint with like you know doing too much art then i you know i take a break come back look at it with the fresh you know eyes and perspective or even longer break and do something completely unrelated to art but you know yeah like that music question i find them listening to music really helps drown that out like really getting that like excited uh you know mindset and just getting that rhythm of you know putting the brush ropes down and just go with it yeah helps me a lot do you find that with we talked earlier about how you feel with getting your characters kind of in the game and anything that you've designed kind of seeing people play it and it gives you butterflies do you find that that affects your kind of personal work because you have such like an end goal for anything that you create at riot whereas your personal art you're doing it for the love of it do you find that that kind of deters you from doing personal projects no i don't think so it's a good balance like personal work helps me you know like explore uh without like any worries or any like like uh yeah it's it's kind of like you can do anything you want with the personal work like i i use that time to try to learn something new so like i mentioned about like being in that community so like on twitter i would see like really cool artworks that i i find super inspirational and i you know i would save that and kind of analyze it and try it out in my personal work and i think that's just a perfect time to do it i guess different kind of um you know excitement you know like that feeling and excitement of like trying to learn something new um and experimenting that's a really good way yeah yeah i'm looking at jet now and and seeing you lay down initially those kind of greeny highlight colors they're popping so much now i love that we're starting to see some of those deeper blues come in there and the pinks as well i it's she's looking amazing by the way so in terms now of i'm seeing you're starting to work on some of the petals kind of in the background do you find that there's a right time to start working on a background or do you find that you really want to have like the main focus nailed down first yeah i want the pedals to be kind of frame uh framing device for the character to uh work as like a you know composition element so like adding like a flow with that like wispy you know the error of the effects that i drawn there um having petals to add like some sort of dimensionality with like subtle details i uh that's kind of the purpose of those so um i try to add those towards like maybe 70 along the way of the art and not not not too early if i do adam too early it's it's kind of to remind myself to not forget about this idea that i came up with in my head in the first place um but i i try to make sure it's not a distraction element like it's just a framing device yeah yeah it's nice that as you said um earlier in terms of doing digital art it makes it more forgiving and free it is it's nice that you kind of put those isd ideas down and think i'm gonna get back to this later but if that was a traditional medium you would have to kind of commit to doing it at that point which makes cool so another question here from alkey myth do you have a tip for learning artists on how to train to use colors i am myself trying to learn digital art but all my drawings are still black and white since my coloring isn't good looking yeah i i went through the same thing i think i'm still going through it um color is really tough to like really control um my advice would be don't be afraid don't don't be afraid to fail because uh in order to grow just about anything um you do have to kind of like do something that you're not very comfortable with and you don't feel like you're ready um so i'll just tackle it even if it doesn't look good um and you know just slowly figure out like how to make it work uh little by little and i think mileage really helps with it um i only became i i guess i i feel like i recently became comfortable with like putting down colors and mixing them um cohesively because i've i've worked with them for so long and i've tried so many different ways but yeah i guess like it hit me like suddenly like something clicked in my head when i transitioned off of like just doing line art and you know organizing my layers and managing everything to like what you see now it's very organic and very loose it's kind of like sculpting um so that that actually helped me unlock myself kind of and rediscover how i approach like coloring yeah it's really interesting as well like seeing this piece of artwork kind of evolve it's not like you put all the colors you wanted to use down at once you kind of you started out with a gray shape and you started adding different bits of color and even now you're adding more and more color as you go through and i think seeing the the pink and blues turn into kind of more of an iridescent kind of flowing color is is really really nice it's it's constantly evolving and you you didn't just decide to use one color it's it's kind of changing which is really cool yeah yeah recently i've had so much fun just like uh adding a lot of like um different colors like even you know contrasting color like hidden in there um and i find that very fascinating and i i've seen other artists do that so well and that's that's just adds a dimensionality to the entire art um it doesn't feel flat and uh you know dry like it feels very you know rich and popping out and pure looking so yeah nice so i'm noticing here on the drawing that you're you're kind of making some aspects of it um stand out a lot more is that what you were talking about in terms of not having the background being distracting yeah part of it is like so the question is uh the background is pretty simple right um yeah like i wouldn't lie like it's mainly because i'm kind of like shying away from doing complicated background it's it's kind of something i'm not very very good at uh but at the same time yeah i try to i'm kind of trained to as a concept artist to keep it simple and make sure the main focus is on the character and and the visual information that's on the character has to be very legible for when i hand hand off the concept to the 3d artist to build them so yeah but definitely because i'm kind of lazy too not at all how long would something like this take to create this one i think this one took about five to six hours and i i i'm looking at it now and i i feel like i want to revisit and change certain things but um it's it's slightly unfinished but uh is that like a curse of an artist kind of always looking at your work and thinking oh i could have changed this and since i've done it i've learned this new skill and never knowing when it's done really yeah it's it's never done um it's all about like when to walk away and be like oh this is ready and when the producer says oh okay this is good enough you can stop now this is awesome you know they're there to remind us not to go uh you know like too much too into it but um yeah like with my personal work i like in the past i would get so like narrowed down in tunnel vision into detailing everything which is fine like uh but i came to learn that it's not really about that it's it's about the whole piece like the entire image how it works and how it what it's trying to do like emotionally and in terms of like telling a story um and and it all it works with the character as well it's not just for illustration and certain moment of time frame um you can tell a lot of stories with like uh you know the accessories and uh you know how they wear their outfits and hair facial expressions subtleties and all that um so yeah uh yeah i think that matters awesome cool so a question here for i guess kind of how artists at riot work poseidon's light says how closely does the skin design team work with the site client and other media design teams and how does the whole collaboration in the project work so i'm guessing um i know that on the champions team like would you do the concept and then you hand it over to the 3d animators how's that process kind of go about yeah that's basically basically you know to simply put that's how it works like um and it's not just the artist it's a lot of other disciplines are involved like even non-art disciplines like narratives and designers game gameplay designers a producer to like help like spearhead the project help it you know help set the goals and you know pillars of the champions or skins and that's that's how we align ourselves and be be be part of a collective of like super talented people trying to create the best thing um and once once we have a very solid idea uh that's when you know we're going to like pre-production and we hand it off to uh production artists like 3d artists they'll take the concept um like a pitch art or you know orthograph and in game view and try to translate that as best as they could as best as they can into 3d form or even and start testing out and that's where we you know it gets really like extra fun to uh like it gets rigged up you know the skeleton gets put in to the character after the model is made and animator takes the rig with the skeleton and just starts to move putting the life into the character uh after that like sound effects uh sound designers will you know even add more life into the character so it's like yeah it's like slowly they come together and the character comes comes to life and uh yeah that's awesome yeah i saw a video posted on twitter i think it was yesterday about um thresh being animated spirit blossom thresh and all of the cards and the way that they like pivot and like fly around i just thought wow like not only has someone drawn this incredible art but then they've turned it into something 3d and then added that completely breath of life to it which i think is awesome yeah i'm also blown away by that i i did not see how it was done and seeing it and that perspective was like mind-blowing also i did mention this uh during our rehearsal but you are paying the cat tax right now one of your cats has very kindly joined us i was hoping this would happen um she's remy she's like a year and a half years old i i rescued her year and a half ago uh from shelter along with her buddy like best buddy he's an orange cat he's he's in the other room right now he has a cone around his neck yeah yeah he went through surgery over the weekend but he's recovering really fast but yeah they were best buddies so i was planning on just getting one but i was like oh i gotta get both they're two they're too perfect for each other stuff yeah that's very key i'm glad that they're gracing us with their presents because i think it makes the stream even more so in terms of that process where you're creating a concept and you're handing it over to someone else is there any kind of um feeling of like it's difficult to kind of let go and trust that somebody else will kind of bring your character to life as you imagined it no i for me i feel more [Music] uh sorry i guess you're like oh please make it better you know what i try to make based on like incredible feedback i'm like all right i'm gonna hand it off i think it's good enough but hopefully you like it and make it better yeah i think there's something like super humbling about that that it's that impostor syndrome right that you mentioned whenever you're kind of creating anything and putting out into the world you don't know how people are going to react and i think that's something that's really awesome about riot is that um everyone is empowered and kind of like the champion of their craft so i'm sure so many people at riot look at your art and think i hope to be as good as you say i'm sure it's not one-sided on your on your point of view so yeah it's definitely very empowering that's that's one thing i feel very lucky about it the company that has created such a compelling game and experience like and letting us be i mean letting me being part of that like big creative process and you know and trusting me with that task like uh i feel yeah it's pretty unreal and like when it when it comes out and seeing people react and seeing everything that we put in all the hard work and uh like the best best effort and uh and and they can seeing that they can tell that we had such a fun making them it's it's awesome um and yeah fan arts and cosplays like that's that's the best reaction we can get yeah nice awesome i definitely can relate as a new writer of only two months i kind of i get that feeling but from a community management influencer kind of point of view it's really awesome to see um first-hand fans loving things and we wouldn't be anywhere without concept artists right if it wasn't for you guys there wouldn't be a game at all so i think that's it's really really cool um all right moving on to more questions i have a question here from victor anderson on twitter saying is it more difficult or easier to make a skin for a non-human character since they might not have the clothing element to work with [Music] it could be it's it can be tricky but also it could also be like easier also like i mean at least for me i find it a little bit uh less forgiving or i mean more forgiving sorry i i would say for like more creature like characters um yeah it's hard to hard to like think of an example but yeah because the human characters especially like um like more you know characters that are more subtle like all about subtleties like um like lux or something like she's really challenging like ultimate elemental slugs is uh as an example i would give like a i i remember like working on like 10 different elemental forms for her and dreading like oh man we've never done this before it's one single character with a very iconic silhouette and yeah you know personality like how do how do i make a 10 different elemental forms without making it redundant but at the same time they're very cohesive together that was like a incredible challenge and i had tons of fun along the way and got tons of help help along the way um and that's a good example of like how difficult it is because you can't if you change so much about that uh the character um it becomes you start to lose who that character is and also if she becomes less relatable um yeah she's relatable because she's so simple yeah she's so simple and very yeah straightforward i would say and it's all about subtleties so yeah when it comes to creatures it's a little bit yeah forgiving yeah i think you're right there it has to be relatable and i think um one big example of that is spirit blossom thresh i think for the first time people seeing thrash in a human form for i love it and i one thing i really really love that i didn't know even seeing the skins way beforehand is that when you play as thrash his skin changes in the game as you play kind of similar to elementalist looks that he kind of turns more into the human demon form rather than like the jaw and everything and i think touches like that are so cool and and specifically when you mentioned elementalist lux like it's not just the concept it's kind of all of those different phases as well that you need to work on but still kind of keeping to that theme which is really cool yeah that one's really good example it's like taking a non-human or semi-human character with like a skull face uh that's very iconic to everybody um but turning him into like a human right human that's who's like very we're very familiar with like the features and the subtle features um that's very hard challenge and um you know our the artist oscar vega did that really well uh tackling that um yeah so you mentioned how much you love uh fan art especially we are already starting to see some spirit blossom jet fan art on twitter um so i would love to urge people if you have yeah if you have created anything please do tweet it at paul at cerrone on twitter yeah that's so fast um so v max [Music] yeah please do tag paul on twitter because as you heard like he loves your fan art he would love to look at it and interact and and help you guys out in terms of all of that good stuff um so yeah please do keep sharing that'd be amazing so we've actually been doing actually nope we've been doing a um a manga contest as well so it's been starting getting some kind of spirit blossom manga entrance which is super cool um and i am so excited every day like seeing more people kind of take the league of legends law and the spirit blossom style and creating their own manga as well which is awesome yeah expanding that story uh like areas to tell stories i i love seeing that like seeing the characters interact with each other and diff different ways i mean we never imagined that's that's so fun yeah yeah i think a lot about like the artwork that you create it's not this sounds super cheesy so please tell me if i'm being super cheesy but you're you know you're creating something that invokes a an emotion from somebody and it makes them not only want to buy the skin or play the champion but they start then looking at the law and they read the art books and they create fan art or fanfic and it's it really resonates with people which kind of builds that like emotional bonds so it's not just you creating something and throwing it out into the world like they're connected to you via that which i think is is so cool yeah it's it's like a pinnacle of excitement i would say like when um when someone really appreciates like a creation and they do their own take on like uh reimagining characters or like putting them in the like a really cool story perspective like that that's always that's amazing and i know that's uh that also inspires me and yeah yeah that's really nice i i am super excited to see if anyone else is creating some spare blossom jets because i just this one i've seen i'm seeing it right now and it's it's very nice we're watching you um so in terms of kind of um your favorite kind of part of the process here i'm seeing that she i mean she looks finnish to me as an artist um you probably don't think so you've mentioned that you would continue working on her but and what are your touches that you're making to chat right now it's like i'm getting to more of a polish stage refinement even though it looks kind of loose up close like i'm at a point i feel like everything is coming together uh properly and it's like cohesively so i decided to like go like zoom in a little bit and all the areas that needs a little bit of like extra uh the last information to make it come together even like more cohesively uh so um yeah i'm adding like some more of those uh like prismatic or uh more of those like saturated highlights in certain areas like blending them in into like the shadows um even the light uh areas that are reflective like i try to add um different hues of colors to you know add like further that dimensionality of the entire image so like i'm constantly zooming in and out and trying to you know look at it and uh like zoomed out like oh what can i where can i go and zoom in and uh you know bring it up to a more polished state yeah i mean it looks great and you say the term loose and i'm just like where like where is it loose because it looks so refined and when every time you zoom out i just think wow like i i was watching you if anyone sees me kind of looking over like i'm watching this happen in real time just as you are in twitch chat and i saw you kind of drawing um kind of like swirls of color on her arm and then with you zoomed in kind of doing that and when you see it you know pan out and how much detail that kind of adds it's it's really really cool [Music] yeah thank you that means a lot um so i have another question here from out of mana studio so they're saying as an artist which aspects of characters design should i focus on and what elements do you look for most in someone's portfolio so if you were kind of reviewing someone's work what would stand out to you that's a good question it's pretty broad it changes depending on the team um it's very situational i would say for on champion team like i'm not i'm not like the sme that's uh kind of like you know recruiting people so i don't want to speak for the team like this is just personally like i yeah i find like being able to tell story very very crucial and also like like gameplay i think those are incredibly important for uh you know characters for league because we have like 150 like around 150 champions now um so game play is incredibly important to convey visually um we have a lot of champions uh slightly overlapping with each other like pro you know using bows as a weapon or you know acts swords so um yeah within the art like scene like if you if you take a look at the art and know exactly what that character is going to do what the personality might be the story which faction this character could be from like that that is a really good um if i can see that right away that's that's a really good indication of it being a successful character design for skins again that's my personal way of looking at it like yeah you you should be able to like um identify which character this is like regardless what yeah what skin minus uh this character is in like the alternative universe that it's being um shown uh so like character recognizability is really important and uh yeah if it's if it's a new character in an existing skin line and uh it should feel very obvious like it should feel like oh that is the that's definitely that skin line um and i can still recognize this character i think that's a very successful concept yeah yeah i like the idea as well that you mentioned there with alternate universes i think that's super important that you know star guardian miss fortune has a different hair color and battle academia lux has red hair and she's my favorite because i have red hair um so there's champions that i wouldn't have normally wanted to play but then a certain skin comes out that i think wow i love the skin and i resonate with it and i want to play them now um and i think that's really cool that with the different universes that we have you're able to explore that which is like kda then just all being in a k-pop group which is super cool um so i have another question here in terms of your process so this is from duxter um ask him from the perspective of a concept artist how do you settle on a design for in-game concept art i've recently started doing similar things and found it very confusing so earlier we talked a little bit about the research that kind of goes um but how do you kind of then settle and make that final decision on the direction so like doing an in-game concept um in-game doing an in-game concept is very very important for our game because like that's mostly how we see the characters portrayed and um how they instantly react to our you know controls uh gameplay controls and being able to see what they do and visually like recognize them in any moment of time is really important so we take readability pretty uh seriously and even though we might not create a design in that perspective right away we we keep that in mind um especially like artists that are a little bit more experienced they they know exactly not exactly but like have a really good idea like what certain aspects of the design and the shape and how big it is the detail management like how how it's going to translate into the in-game perspective but even then we we which we require or we we try to like um finish the design by testing it out by doing the in-game concept uh in-game rendering with the summoner's rift background in there to test out is this character recognizable in the skin line um for champion like is this character conveying all the things like the gameplay um like you know intentions and stories uh yeah it's important yeah yeah i know super important i think something i really really love is like our pbe previews as well so when a character or a skin line gets announced you always kind of see it in game as well as like cinematic or splash art because there's so many different kind of variants that you're seeing this as you said you know um splash art's one thing and you see that when you buy a skin or buy a champion but when you're actually playing in-game that's completely different um and i think that it's really interesting so we're actually coming to the end of our time together now um so thank you all so much for your amazing questions this has been super fun paul thank you so much for not only creating this amazing piece of artwork but for joining me today it's been amazing to do this with you oh thanks for being with me and uh you know being able to share this experience together and uh yeah thanks to like everybody joined uh in this uh stream it's been really wonderful and fun yeah yeah i'm seeing a lot of comments now just like wow he is very talented and that's so true and i think when we announced this so many people were super excited to see you so i know you're super humble because that's the way you are but so many people super love this and i do just want to remind everyone that this is just like a fun collaboration between the spirit blossom event and valerian so you won't be seeing spirit blossom jet invalorent uh but this is just a really nice fun exploration of the r and um paul very kindly agreed to us tweeting out the final image on the eu twitter account if you would like to go there after the stream feel free and if you do create any fan arts or cosplays of this or anything please do tag paul because he loves it we becky please i get energized i get motivated yeah if you want more skins or like new champions you need to send fan arts and cosplays because that fuels pool soul yeah my bar oh my god it's like this spirit bombs in game like currently everyone's sitting like a b if you really want to get to that s we need some fan arts um and if you are wanting to flex your kind of creative muscle even more as i said we do currently have a manga contest that you're free to enter one of the top prizes that actually includes one-on-one time with jen lim and it's amazing to be able to have kind of a video call with an artist at riot and get some feedback on your own creation so feel free to enter that if you're interested as well and thank you everybody for hanging out this has been awesome and hopefully if you guys enjoyed it let us know and we can start planning draw through it three [Music] and we'll see you all next time bye everyone [Music] you

Channel: Riot Games

Views: 40,034

Keywords: Spirit Blossom, VALORANT, Jett, League of Legends, concept art, art, Riot Games

Id: ADKqT5GuISk

Length: 88min 34sec (5314 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 01 2020